St. Stanislaus High School, Mumbai

In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2017-18, St. Stanislaus is the sole state board-affiliated private school ranked in the Top 10 national all-boys day schools league table dominated by CBSE and CISCE-affiliated schools - Dipta Joshi

Spread across a generous seven-acre campus in land-starved Mumbai’s upscale suburb of Bandra, St. Stanislaus High School (estb.1863) is widely acknowledged as one of the commercial capital’s oldest and most admired all-boys schools. The 154-year-old K-10 school is affiliated with the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education and enjoys a reputation for being the nursery of national-level hockey and football players such as Olympian Marcellus Gomes and Viren Rasquinha, the latter a former captain of India’s national field hockey team. In the latest EducationWorld India School Rankings 2017-18, St. Stanislaus is ranked among the country’s Top 10 all-boys schools and #4 in Mumbai, with the unique distinction of being the sole state board-affiliated and government-aided private school in the Top 10 table dominated by independent schools affiliated with the pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards. 

Promoted in 1863 by the globe-girdling Rome (Italy)-based Society of Jesus (aka Jesuits), over the past 154 years St. Stanislaus has evolved into one of Maharashtra’s most progressive K-10 schools with equal emphasis on academics and extra-curricular and sports activities delivered to 2,300 students, mentored by 45 teachers. “St. Stanislaus has a rich heritage of excellence in academics, sports and extra-curricular education and we are committed to working towards magis — Latin for ‘more’. For instance, to supplement the state board syllabus, last year we introduced an enrichment course — the St. Stanislaus Certificate Programme of Excellence (SSCPE) — for class VI-VIII students. It is a credits-based programme based on four pillars — social, spiritual, intellectual and personal transformation. Our mission is to develop well-balanced citizens who reach out in selfless service,” says Anna Correa, an alumna of Pune University who signed up as teacher at the school in 1988. In 2015, she was appointed the first woman principal of the all-boys St. Stanislaus.

The school has consistently recorded excellent results in the class X SSC exam of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE). In 2017, of the 193 students who wrote the class X board exams, 20 students averaged 99 percent.

While the majority of the school’s students were preparing to write the MSBSHSE’s SSC exam, in June 2016 responding to demands from the school’s alumni association for international curriculum and certification, the management introduced the IGCSE programme of the UK-based Cambridge Assessment International Education (formerly CIE) for class VII and subsequently for class IX students. Currently, 34 students are enrolled in the IGCSE programme. 

“We run a unique IGCSE programme under which we share teaching resources and best practices with the neighbouring St. Joseph’s Convent. We believe in continuously reinventing ourselves and collaborating with schools to enable our students to receive maximum benefit from their education,” says Correa.

Founded as an orphanage by Fr. Joseph Weber (SJ) in 1863, the school’s vintage double-storied building initially housed 140 boys. In 1923, it became the first English-medium school of suburban Bombay transforming into a full-fledged secondary school in 1926 when the first batch of seven students wrote their matriculation exams. By the early 1970s, the boarding houses were shut down to convert the existing facilities into classrooms for day scholars. 

Today, the school’s composite seven-acre campus houses the 164-year-old St. Peter’s Church (rebuilt in 1938), 50 classrooms, science labs, three large playgrounds, a modern gymnasium, two auditoriums (300-seat and 1,000-seat) and a museum displaying vintage coins and stamps. The primary and secondary sections have separate libraries providing access to an aggregate 40,000 volumes. Despite tuition fees being low, the school management has invested heavily in ICT equipment and technologies including Smart-boards, multimedia projectors, two computer labs and CCTV cameras. 

Yet perhaps the most distinguishing feature of St. Stanislaus is its sustained emphasis on sports education, particularly the field games of hockey and football. The school’s three large playgrounds — a rarity in Mumbai — offer excellent facilities for hockey, football and cricket with expert coaches mentoring students. Over the years, St. Stanislaus teams have consistently bagged trophies in major city, district and state-level hockey and football tournaments and players from the school’s under-14 and under-17 hockey teams are routinely selected for national teams. During the past decade, the school has added basketball, table-tennis, badminton, volleyball and chess to its sports menu. 

The school’s co-curricular education menu is equally impressive with students encouraged to participate in the National Cadet Corps, Scouts, Road Safety Patrol, music, elocution, dramatics, nature, and English language clubs. The school also boasts an active alumni association with 10,000 registered members. 

With the 154-year-old school continuously reinventing itself to meet the challenges of 21st century teaching-learning, the future looks bright. “St. Stanislaus has a rich legacy of excellence and we are committed to maintaining and enhancing our reputation and facilities. Projects on the drawing board include construction of an international standard Astro-Turf ground for field hockey and introduction of the Indian sport of Malkhamb this year. While the state board SSC curriculum will remain our focus, we also have a lot of work to do in our newly introduced IGCSE section,” says Correa.